The Student Centric Classroom

In a recent article in edutopia online called Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education Is the Future , the authors (Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn) lay out the argument that only those technologies that support the student-centric classroom will have any impact on changing education for the better. They contrast the teacher-centric classroom, which we are all very familiar with, with a model of a classroom which supports multiple learning styles or a universal design for learning (UDL)approach.

It is the approach that we have seen in several (not all) of the classrooms involved in the Emerge 1 to 1 laptop project in EPSB, and in the Wireless Mobile Technology project before that.

Students partake in interactive learning with computers and other technology devices; teachers roam around as mentors and individual learning coaches; learning is tailored to each student’s differences; students are engaged and motivated.